I always had one little worm to kill since I’ve been using a Mac, especially for a few years because the platform has become more and more exclusive: recovering my Age of Empires saga. Microsoft hasn’t made them compatible with macOS since the special release of the second installment, and you miss being able to tinker with the Definitive Edition and Part IV that are available on Steam.
I am hopeful in the next news: we will be able to play Age of Empires occasionally from Cloud Gaming or even from an Xbox. But as long as that doesn’t come, I tried an open alternative that might just keep me entertained and works quite well even on Macs with Apple Silicon. I’m talking about 0 AD, known as the “open era of empires”.
You can live without the “wololo”
Installing 0 AD on my Mac mini M1 was not difficult. Just go to the game’s download site and select the 64-bit version for Intel chips or the “M1” version for Macs with an Apple Silicon chip. You download the app, move it to your Mac’s Applications directory, and you’re done. Even at 4K resolution, the performance does not disappoint and its requirements support computers of a certain age. As long as macOS 10.12 Sierra is installed, everything is fine.
In some versions of macOS you cannot open the game for security reasons, but this is something that the web itself already tells you about and is solved by typing this command in the terminal after installing 0 AD:
xattr -cr /Applications/0\AD.app
The game does not hide too many secrets for those who have already had their vices
There are some differences, especially in what we consider to be “villagers”. Whereas in Age of Empires these are only used for gathering resources and building (and for very poor defense), in 0 AD you train warriors who use villagers until the time to attack comes. And right off the bat, you have multiple types of these warriors, each with their own resource requirements. And if you don’t want that, you can always train villagers who don’t have the warrior part.
As for the fights, the system does not change. You train troops, explore the terrain, locate the enemy base to attack, and defend your city. The single player campaign is still very green, but we can generate single player games to pass the time.
I’ll be keeping an eye on the development of the original Age of Empires, make no mistake about it, but 0 AD is still installed on my Mac mini on whatever days off I can take. If you miss the real-time strategy game, 0 AD is free and is in continuous development.